


The Hopeful Romantic

by LarielRomeniel



Series: The Waiting Room [5]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cinnamon Roll Ray Palmer, F/M, Legends of Tomorrow Team are Family, mafia, original team legends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-18 21:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16524974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LarielRomeniel/pseuds/LarielRomeniel
Summary: “If he sees you in that dress, he’ll dance. Or he’ll come up with some other excuse to put his arms around you,” Ray once told Sara. He'd be damned if Leonard Snart was going to make a liar out of him.The only thing getting in the way now? Stopping a Mafia murder.





	The Hopeful Romantic

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been a long, long time in the making. I came across the setting nearly two years ago, and started writing something for it. But the idea didn't really coalesce until this past month.
> 
> It is not strictly necessary to read the previous installments of "The Waiting Room," (though I'd love it if you did - and commented!). You do need to know that this is part of a fixit that diverges from canon from midway through 1x16, and that before being rescued, Leonard was given a glimpse of potential futures.
> 
> Many thanks, as always, to Jael, for betas of the early versions as well as this one!

_“Still the hopeless romantic, aren’t you?”_

_He smiled down at her. “Hopeful romantic, to quote ‘Romancing The Stone,’” he corrected. “If you two can come through all of this, then there’s some hope for the rest of us.”_

\- Sara and Ray, “A Time For Great Things” Chapter 5

* * *

 

_New York City, July 11, 1934_

It was enough to depress even the most hopeful romantic, Ray thought. Granted, they were on a mission, and in a room full of mobsters and their molls, it was probably for the best that they stayed focused on that mission, but still...

Was the man blind? And deaf? How could he look at Sara in that dress, listen to this music, and not pull her into his arms for a dance? Mission or no?

 _“If he sees you in that dress, he’ll dance. Or he’ll come up with some other excuse to put his arms around you,”_ Ray had blithely told Sara the last time they were in 1934. He’d been trying to keep her spirits up as they worked to save Leonard Snart from Jurgen’s Ridge.

He’d be damned if the man was going to make a liar out of him now, Ray thought, blowing out a sigh before lifting his trumpet back to his lips.

* * *

 

_A Few Hours Earlier_

Gideon had detected an anomaly in 2017 Central City, so they’d dropped out of the Temporal Zone to check it out. The shocked gasps from Stein and Jax were their first clues as to the seriousness of the aberration. Their psychic connection had fallen silent when they landed in a very different Central City.

STAR Labs was missing. So was the particle accelerator. And so, apparently, was the Flash, along with every other metahuman created by the explosion, including Firestorm.

 _Central City Picture News_ was still in business, though, its home page plastered with stories of shootings and kidnappings. “These stories make the Glades seem like an amusement park,” Ray observed as Gideon put the images up on the holo display.

“Violence with a side of corruption, it seems,” Stein said. “Listen to this editorial: _Mayor D’Ambrosio says he will take action, but how much action can Central’s citizens expect him to take against those who bankrolled his campaign?”_

Len’s head jerked up in surprise. _“Mayor_ D’Ambrosio?” he repeated.

“Fat Vito?” Mick asked. He nodded at the photo Gideon brought up. “Yeah, Fat Vito.”

“I take it this is just another part of the aberration?” Rip asked.

Stein replied, “Indeed. Central City’s mayor was Anthony Bellows when we left.”

“And Vito D’Ambrosio was nothing more than a bag man for the Santini crime family,” Len added.

“Bag man… oh! He collected protection money!” Ray exclaimed. When Mick and Len looked at him oddly, he went on, “I saw ‘The Godfather.’ Actually, all three movies.”

Mick rolled his eyes. “Goody for you, Haircut.”

“Nice to know you’ve done your research,” Len said drily. He turned his attention back to Rip. “In our timeline, Fat Vito was just a low-level associate. The Santinis gave him the protection gig as a courtesy to the Five Families in New York, but they’d never give him more than that. He wasn’t blood.”

“So, what changed?” Sara asked. “How did a mobster become mayor?”

Stein snorted. “Aren’t all politicians mobsters at heart?”

“Maybe he married into the Santini family and then they bankrolled his campaign?” Jax suggested.

“The records do not show any Santini crime family,” Gideon announced.

“You mean not in Central City?” Rip asked with a frown.

Gideon answered, “I mean not anywhere. Central City’s organized crime is controlled by the Five Families Mr. Snart mentioned.”

Len’s eyes had widened and he shook his head at that proclamation. “That explains a lot,” he said.

“Does it make a difference which family is in charge?” Stein asked. “Criminals are criminals.”

“It makes a difference,” Len said, sharply enough to make the older man blink in surprise. “Yeah, the Santinis were into illegal gambling and extortion and gunrunning. But they kept drugs out of Central. The Five Families would have brought them in, along with human trafficking. They’d have made Central a hellhole like Gotham. Not _my_ city,” he growled, shaking his head again. “Gideon, how did this happen?”

“According to the records, this reality can be traced to a shooting in July of 1934,” Gideon said, bringing up an image of an old _New York Post_ headline. It blared _WINE CELLAR REOPENING MARRED BY MAFIA MURDER._

“Nice alliteration,” Mick observed. He rolled his eyes at Ray’s huff of surprise. “Yeah, Haircut, I know what that is.”

The projection changed, showing a photo of a man. Gideon continued, “The _Post_ reports a small-time criminal named Rafael Santini was killed at this event.”

Mick barked out a laugh. “They called him ‘small time?’”

Len’s frown grew deeper. “Rafael Santini may have been small-time in 1934, but he founded the Santini crime family,” he said. “In our timeline he had an... _understanding_ with the Five Families, and he ran his own with an iron fist for more than fifty years.”

“Boss and I did one job with his people just before he died. Then his idiot grandnephew took over. And then… _we_ took over,” Mick said. He looked around in surprise at the uncomfortable expressions on most of their teammates. “What? You all know what we were. It’s why Rip recruited us. No point in pretending it never happened.”

“But we all remember that’s not you any more, Mr. Rory. Neither of you,” Rip said. He peered at the projection. “The paper says there were no suspects and no motive.”

Sara frowned. “A room full of witnesses, but no one saw who pulled the trigger?”

“Or why?” Stein added.

 _“Omertà,”_ Ray said. “The Mafia code of silence.”

Jax nodded. “Snitches get stitches.”

“Stitches is getting off easy,” Mick said.

“If everyone would please observe some _omertà_ right now, perhaps we can come up with a plan?” Rip implored, getting chuckles and smirks from around the table before the team got down to business.

* * *

 

Music and conversation echoed through the brick labyrinth of the Anthony Oechs & Company wine cellars. What no one could hear was the rumble of traffic over their heads as cars crossed the Brooklyn Bridge above them.

Built within the ramps leading to the bridge’s anchorages, with thick stonework to keep the heat out, the frigid caverns of the wine cellars were an oddity almost forgotten by the 21st century. _(“Almost_ forgotten,” Rip had pointed out when Len began speculating on their suitability as a safe house. “By your time, they’re a stop on those ‘Hidden City’ tours. But for now, they’re the perfect place to store fine wines by the barrel.”)

Sara shivered. The silk shawl that had felt too heavy in the July humidity was completely inadequate in this chilly space, but she drew it a little more tightly around her shoulders anyway. Shoulders that were bare thanks to the halter-style bodice of her dress; an exact copy of the one she’d worn… and destroyed… that last night on the _Morro Castle_. And she knew who to thank for it: Ray Palmer, ever the hopeless romantic, who even now was watching her with that wounded-puppy expression from the small platform serving as a stage. Probably disappointed she and Len weren’t dancing to the song Stein was singing, with Ray and Rip as accompanists. (The three musicians they’d replaced would wake up with awful headaches, but no memory of what had happened to them thanks to the handy memory-wiper Ray and Gideon had invented.)

Sara rolled her eyes at him. Not that she would have minded doing some dance-floor recon with Len. But moments after they’d arrived at the party, they were intercepted by a pair of zoot-suited men. Foolishly only giving Sara a cursory glance, the suits inspected their forged invitation, then shepherded Len across the room to a scarred man with one droopy eye and curly hair elegantly combed and Brylcreemed into place. Len talked with the man for a few minutes, then gave him a… deferential… nod and returned to Sara’s side just as their teammates finished another number.

“Rip is fuming. You turned your comm off,” she told him.

Len smirked and tapped the comm back on. “Sorry, Rip, but I didn’t need to hear Raymond’s trumpet in surround sound.”

_“Hey!”_

Len ignored Ray’s indignant response. _“That_ was Lucky Luciano,” he told Sara.

 _“Did he buy your cover story?”_ Rip asked from the piano (which he played surprisingly well), before starting the opening notes of a new song.

“If he hadn’t, we’d be dead already,” Len snorted. “As far as anyone here is concerned, I’m from the Dillinger gang, here to pay respects on my boss’s behalf.”

“And they won’t check with him?” she asked.

Len shook his head. “They know Dillinger’s in hiding. The respects are an overture for possible sanctuary, but he’ll never need it. He’ll be shot dead in eleven days.” He surveyed the room. “The heads of nearly all the Five Families are here. This place is like a Who’s Who of organized crime.”

“Thought you said Santini was low-level at this time. Why would he be mixing with this crowd?” Sara asked.

“Don’t know. And I don’t see him,” Len answered, frowning. “I’m missing something here…”

“We’ll figure it out. We always do,” Sara told him. She ran a hand over the lapel of his jacket, admiring the way its midnight blue brought out the blue of his eyes. “I like the suit.”

Those eyes warmed and he put a hand over hers. “I like the dress.”

Sara could swear she heard a little note of...triumph... from Ray’s horn as Len stepped a little closer--

“Champagne?” Mick smirked at them as he interrupted with a tray full of glasses. Ray played a sour note. Sara rolled her eyes and took one, while Mick went on in a low tone, “Still can’t believe we’re going to pull a Santini’s ass out of the fire.”

“He’s not just ‘a’ Santini, Mick. He’s _the_ Santini,” Len answered with a sigh. “And if we don’t save _his_ ass, it’ll be _our_ asses in the future. Keep moving, see if you can hear anything.”

Mick grunted in acknowledgement, but kept up his complaints over the comms. _“Don’t see why I’ve always gotta play waiter at these things. Why can’t I be up on stage with them?”_

 _“Because you don’t have any musical talent, Mr. Rory,”_ Rip said, making Stein choke a little bit on the lyrics of _I Only Have Eyes For You._

Before Mick could argue the point, Jax interrupted from somewhere deeper in the cellars, where the organizers of this little soiree had put him on fetch-and-carry duty.

 _“Hey, guys, found something funny back here,”_ he reported.

 _“Do share the joke, Mr. Jackson,”_ Rip answered, still sounding a little irritated.

 _“It’s not that kind of funny,”_ Jax answered. _“There’s a room back here with a table and some stuff that looks like… well, it looks like it’s a setup for some kind of ritual.”_

Len’s head snapped up quickly and his eyes widened. “Jax, tell me exactly what you see,” he ordered. “What’s on the table?”

_“Uh, there’s a gun and a knife lying in the middle of it. There’s a bottle of wine and some glasses… and… there’s a card with a picture of an angel. There’s a needle here, too. What’s it mean?”_

“First thing it means is you should get away from there, Jax,” Len said. He looked back down at Sara. “That’s why this room is full of bosses. This isn’t just a wine tasting party. Someone’s getting made tonight.”

_“You mean it’s a sex ritual?”_

Sara and Len both rolled their eyes at Ray’s question, while Mick huffed in semi-disgust. _“He said ‘made,’ not ‘laid,’ Haircut. It’s a setup for an initiation ceremony. Thought you were the Mafia expert.”_

_“Oh, riiight. Wiseguys are also known as ‘made men!’”_

_“Dr. Palmer, just play before_ we _are made,”_ Rip chided. On stage, Ray frowned slightly and raised his trumpet once again.

 _“All right, I’m out of there,”_ Jax reported. _“I think...oh, man!”_

Sara’s eyes widened as Jax fell silent. She and Leonard stared at each other tensely for what felt like long minutes. Then Jax finally spoke again.

 _“Guys, Santini just got dragged into that ritual room. He already looks beaten up.”_ He paused, then said, _“I think the only thing they’re making tonight is a corpse.”_

 

* * *

 

Sara moved close to him again, putting her hand on his lapel once more as if flirting. But her expression was grim. “That explains why the Santini family never happened.”

Len thought furiously even as his hand went over hers again, maintaining the act. The pieces weren’t quite fitting together. “Still doesn’t make sense. The mob doesn’t throw a party to hold an execution.”

Sara’s slightly widened eyes were the only warning Len got before a voice spoke up right behind him. “Mr. Makley.”

That was the alias he’d given. Had it been blown? He squeezed Sara’s hand, and they exchanged a slight nod of agreement, ready for a fight if necessary. Then Len turned to see Luciano and one of his dapper _soldatos._ The mobster smirked at him not-quite-apologetically. “I’m afraid we have to mix some unexpected business with pleasure tonight. As a representative of the Dillinger gang, I think it’s important that you see just how we take care of _business.”_

Luciano’s gaze slid over to Sara, his expression just the polite side of lascivious. “And while we conduct our business, the ladies will go for a tasting of a beautiful _dolcetto_. It’s like rubies in a glass.”

Len noticed the women were clearing the room, heading down a passageway. But Sara smiled sweetly at the man while threading an arm through Len’s. “Rubies, huh?” Only someone who knew her as well as Len did would know she was fuming behind that pasted-on smile. “Thanks, but I’m more of a whiskey kind of girl. Although this champagne’s pretty nice,” she allowed, taking a sip from her glass.

Luciano’s eyes got a little colder, but his tone remained pleasant. “I’m afraid we don’t have any spirits here tonight, but since you like the champagne… Salvatore, please find a nice _Prosecco_ for the lady,” he told his associate. He looked back at Sara. “Just like champagne, but with a little Italian… _spark.”_

The younger man extended a hand to lead the way, but Sara didn’t move. Luciano frowned at Len, then leaned in a little and said, “I must insist, _bellisima._ This business is for the men. It will not take long.”   
  
Len patted Sara’s hand and nodded to her. “Go ahead, doll. Like the man said, this won’t take long.”

Sara sighed and slowly pulled her arm away. She gave Len a _look_ , then turned and sauntered away, her green silk skirt swirling and swishing as she moved. Not for the first time tonight, the dress invoked a wisp of a memory that hadn’t yet happened. Before Len could lose himself in what he recognized as a Ridge vision, Luciano gave a low whistle, watching Sara walk away. “She looks like a sweet little number. _S_ _ei fortunato, signore_. Unlike the poor sap we’ve gotta deal with tonight. And I had such hopes for him. _Che casino,”_ Luciano said with a regretful sigh. He gave Len a little shrug. “You’ll have time to hit the dance floor after.”

 _After what?_ Len wondered, just a bit reluctant to let the wisp go. But they were on mission, and sorting Ridge memories took just a bit more concentration than he could spare right now. He glanced around the room, and saw Mick and Jax at the back with the other waiters.

Luciano walked up to the stage, motioning for the music to stop. He got up on the stage and took the microphone from Stein, who retreated to stand with Raymond over by Rip’s piano.

“Gentlemen, I am sorry to interrupt what has been such a lovely evening with some very, very bad news. We all thought we were here tonight to welcome a new _soldato_ to our ranks. Unfortunately, we have learned that he is… unworthy,” Luciano told the crowd. He snapped his fingers, and two hard-faced, angry-looking men dragged a younger man in from the passage where Jax had been earlier.

Rafael Santini had one hell of a shiner blooming on his right eye. A ragged lock of hair hung over the other eye. His lip was torn and bloody, his clothes rumpled, torn and bloodstained. His captors gave him a shove, and he fell to his knees on the floor before the stage.

“Rafael Santini, we were prepared to make you a man of honor, but we have learned that you are not a man at all,” Luciano said. A murmur ran through the room, and Luciano continued, “We are always careful about who we allow into _cosa nostra,_ before we invite you, and after. But you were not careful about your associations. We know about your visit to the Rockland Palace.”

 _“What’s the Rockland Palace?”_ Len heard Mick ask quietly.

One of Mick’s fellow waiters leaned in close enough for all of them to hear the answer. _“You know. It’s that club… the one for guys who like other guys.”_

Len grimaced. Even though the Mafia of this time was happy to take money from queers at its illicit nightclubs, it was notorious for its murderous intolerance of them within its ranks, an attitude that persisted into the 21st century. The Santini family had been an exception among crime families, and now he understood why.

Luciano went on, “You knew our code. No drugs. Respect for family. And above all, _Omertà._ People who are not part of _cosa nostra_ think that merely means silence, but it means more than that. At the root of _Omertà_ is manliness…”

 _“Oh, brother,”_ Sara scoffed over the comms.

 _“What do we do?_ ” Ray murmured.

 _“I’ve got an idea,”_ Mick said.

_“Mr. Rory, I don’t think…”_

_“I know you don’t, English. Just roll with it.”_

Len glanced back over his shoulder and saw Mick shouldering through the crowd, his face darkening with anger as he saw Santini on the floor. “Hey! That’s the bastard who messed with my sister!”

Mick charged through the remaining _soldatos_ and hauled Santini off the floor by his already-torn jacket. “You think you can get away with sweet-talkin’ her into… into what you did ta her?” Mick roared before punching Santini in the gut, sending him stumbling toward the stage, to be caught by Rip and Raymond.

They looked at each other, then at Santini. “Hey, I know this guy! He messed with my sister too!” Ray exclaimed.

“And mine!” Rip added, getting into the spirit of things.

Stein stepped between the others and put his glasses on to peer at Santini’s face. “This… this... _cad_ importuned my niece!” he shouted, following it up with a right cross Len would never have expected from an academic.

Now the man would have matching shiners, Len thought as Santini staggered back toward Mick. A couple of the zoot suits tried to get between him and Santini, who crumpled to the floor. Mick roared again, wordlessly this time, and laid into them.

 _That_ got the rest of the waitstaff involved, throwing down trays and rushing the mobsters… and, for some reason, the musicians too, pulling Rip and Raymond into the fray. Jax got into it too, trying to defend his teammates. Stein (still shaking his hand after that magnificent punch) managed to retreat behind one of the wine barrels beside the stage, leaving it empty except for Luciano, who simply watched the melee. While the mob boss’ attention was on another part of the room, Len pulled Santini to his feet.

“I never… I don’t even know what ‘importune’ means! I never touched anybody’s sister! Or niece!” Santini babbled, loudly enough for Len to hear him but not enough for anyone else to.

“Yeah, you did,” Len corrected in a low tone for Santini’s ears only. When the other man stared at him in surprise, he said, “You wanna live? Then you messed with all of them and every other dame outside of the Families, you hear? Otherwise they’ll fit you for cement shoes! Got it?”

Santini swallowed visibly and nodded. Len turned his attention back to the fight, and saw what had caught Luciano’s eye. The commotion had brought the women out from their private tasting. But unlike many of the other molls, Sara was working her way through the middle of the fight with her own special style of dancing, throwing punches and kicks as she made her way toward Len. When she finally reached him, she gave Santini one scowl before belting him, sending him back to the floor. Loudly, she said, “This is the creep I was telling you about! Tried to put his hands all over my--”

“I get it, doll!” Len said. And he did get it, noting how Sara’s gaze had gone up to the stage. Len turned to see Luciano watching them with a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t think this guy is what you think he is, Mr. Luciano,” Len called up to him.

“Neither are you, _signore,”_ Luciano replied, making Len freeze… until the crime lord grinned at him. “I said you were lucky, but after watching her…” he nodded at Sara, “you’re either very brave… or _molto pazzo.”_

The mobster stepped aside as a waiter was thrown into the piano, smashing the wood of its upper panel. Luciano shook his head. “I’m afraid you’ll have to go elsewhere for your dance, Mr. Makley.”

“What about…?” Len gestured around the room at the ongoing fight.

Luciano waved it away. “The boys are running out of steam. I’ll let them work it out. In the meantime, Mr. Santini and I have our own business to work out.”

Still huddled on the floor, Santini stared up at Luciano. “Are you gonna kill me?”

Luciano smirked at him. “Nah. I’m not like Capone. I don’t kill for no reason. And if you’ve been messing with dames like that one -” he indicated Sara again, “then there’s no reason.”

He stepped off the stage, stepping aside for another battling pair, and reached out to pull Santini up. “Apologize to the lady,” he instructed.

“Uh...um… I’m sorry?” Santini offered tentatively.

“Apology accepted,” Sara replied with a smirk.

Luciano nodded in satisfaction. “Good. Now, I can’t let you stay here, either, Mr. Santini. Too many questions. Still… I could use some more connections outside of New York. What do you think about the Midwest?”

“Uh, I… I don’t know,” Santini quavered while a waiter smashed a bottle over a mobster’s head a few feet away from them.

Luciano ignored the fight. “Mr. Makley, what do you think? Would this boy make a good ally in Chicago?”

Len glanced down at Sara, who raised her eyebrows with a knowing grin. “Between us and The Outfit and the Northside Gang, Chicago’s way too crowded. But… what do you think about Central City?”

* * *

 

“Why is it that whenever I put you people in a room with alcohol, a fight breaks out?” Rip asked plaintively, leaning against a railing of the Brooklyn Bridge and rubbing his jaw where he’d taken a blow from one of the battling mobsters.

They’d left the cellars by ones and twos, meeting up again on the bridge’s pedestrian path, in a spot faintly lit by a dim street lamp.

“Oh, come on, Rip,” Sara said consolingly. “We kept Santini from getting killed, and got him set up as a special liaison for Lucky Luciano.”

“And that arrangement will be enough to keep the Five Families from coming in and messing up my city,” Len added with satisfaction.

“And Gray is back inside my head again,” Jax said.

“So it looks like history is back on track, particle accelerator explosion and all,” Stein finished.

“And we got more booze for your liquor cabinet. A bottle of red, a bottle of white,” Mick added, holding up the wines he’d purloined on the way out of the cellars. “So cheer up, English!”

Rip sighed again. “I suppose you’re right,” he conceded. He patted his jacket pockets. “Where is my link… ah!” He took out the small device and pressed a button. “Let’s see what we have wrought.”

The link projected a holographic display of the next day’s _New York Post._ “The headline’s changed,” Sara said.

 _“BRAWL UNDER THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE,”_ Jax read.

“Alliteration’s still good,” Mick said.

“And nobody got killed this time,” Stein said.

“Well, I suppose a few bruises are a small price to pay for setting history straight again,” Rip said, turning off the hologram. He looked over at the last member of their group. “Doctor Palmer, you’ve been quiet. Are you all right? Anything damaged besides your trumpet?”

The scientist looked up from his instrument, which had been bent during the fight. “I’m fine, Rip. And this is okay, too. Dizzy Gillespie played a horn just like this one.”

He raised the trumpet to his lips and played an experimental scale. The tone sounded different than before. Then he launched into the opening notes of _I Only Have Eyes For You,_ his own eyes on Sara as he played. She rolled her eyes at him, and he trailed off, lowering the trumpet. “I guess we ought to get going before we accidentally mess up the timeline that we just fixed,” he said.

The group began to walk… except for Len, who just stood there with an odd look on his face.

“Len?”

* * *

 

Something about the light was pulling at him.The illumination from the street lamp was more like moonlight than man-made, evoking that wisp of memory again. Determined - and able - to catch it this time, Len tuned out everything going on around him (not easy with Raymond’s playing) and focused, the way he and Gideon had been practicing on those late nights when Ridge memories troubled his sleep.

Moonlight… and Sara’s green dress… Len smiled a little as one of the Ridge’s more pleasant visions came back to him full force. “I’m fine, Sara,” he answered, returning his attention to the present. “Raymond, play that again.” 

Raymond’s jaw dropped. “Really?”

“Really,” Len told him. “If you please.”

“Oh, I please!” Raymond said with a grin, before starting to play.

Len extended a hand to Sara. “Want to dance, Sara?”

Sara raised an eyebrow, but took Len’s hand and moved into his arms. Mick and Jax grinned and leaned against the railing, while Stein and Rip looked at each other, nodded and began to sing.

 

* * *

 

_“Are there stars out tonight_

_I can’t tell if it’s cloudy or bright_

_I only have eyes for you, dear…”_

 

“So, you gonna tell me what was going on with that trance?” Sara asked as they swayed together.

“Nothing to worry about. Just... remembering this.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Remembering before it happened? So you saw this on the Ridge?”

“Mmm-hmm. One of the nicer things I saw there,” he said, wrapping his hand around hers and resting them against his heart.

“One of them?” she asked in a slightly cajoling tone.

He smiled. “Thought you wanted to just let the future happen?”

“Can’t blame me for wanting a sneak peek!” she chuckled. “But you’re right. Save the spoilers! Anyway, I think you just made Ray’s month.”

Len raised an eyebrow. “By asking him to play?”

“By asking me to dance. He’s been waiting for it all night,” she answered. She chuckled again at Len’s expression. “Ray is a bit… invested in our relationship.”

“Invested,” he repeated with a frown. “Why? If it was anyone but Raymond, it would really be disturbing, but still… I’m not sure I like this fixation on me and you.”

Sara smiled, thinking about a conversation on a doomed cruise ship. “Ray’s… had a hard time with romance. His first fiancee died, Felicity and Kendra both broke up with him--”

“Who’s Felicity?”

“Oh, I’ll be sure to introduce you!”

Len was still frowning slightly. “So you’re telling me that Raymond’s fangirling over us because he keeps getting his heart broken?”

“Fan _girling?_ This is Ray we’re talking about.”

“Like I said!” Len returned, smirking.

“Oh, don’t be mean!” She freed her hand to bat him lightly on the chest, then slipped it back into his. “Ray once told me if you and I could make it, that means there’s hope for all of us.”

“So he’s a hopeful romantic, hmm?”

“Exactly.”

He looked over her head at Ray with a thoughtful expression as the music continued. Then he looked back down at her, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Wanna make his little fangirl heart skip a beat?”

“Leonard!” She laughed even as she gave him a scolding look.

“Okay, okay, fan _boy_ heart! Get ready!” With that warning, he pulled her hand up over his shoulder, then slid both hands to her back, taking a quick lunge to dip her. Sara’s giggle of delight was quickly swallowed by his lips on hers.

And yes, there was indeed a note of triumph from Ray’s trumpet.

 

_“You are here, so am I_

_Maybe millions of people go by_

_But they all disappear from view_

_And I only have eyes for you”_

**Author's Note:**

> A glossary for the Italian words:
> 
> Sei fortunati, signore - You're a lucky man
> 
> Bellissima - Beautiful (woman)
> 
> Che casino - What a mess
> 
> Cosa nostra - "our thing" AKA the Mafia
> 
> Soldato - "soldier," a member of the Mafia
> 
> Molto pazzo - very crazy
> 
> The props for the initiation ritual are based on a description from an actual Mafia member. The wine cellars and the Rockland Palace were real locations during this era. And the mob did indeed run gay nightclubs in New York.
> 
> Lyrics to "I Only Have Eyes For You" by Harry Warren and Al Dubin, written for the 1934 movie "Dames." 
> 
> And yes, Dizzy Gillespie played a bent trumpet (and according to his bio, Brandon Routh knows how to play the trumpet too).


End file.
